Eventually the assembly line finds a way to make what you need, plus what you never thought to think you might want. In the picture collection folder Factories you might find evidence of the way our world was built.

The tiny American flag and big six-figure check on the first-issue cover proclaim their audacity. No kneeling to sacred cows, least of all advertising.

Warren Hinckle came from Ramparts, which published Che Guevara, Fidel Castro and Eldridge Cleaver. Sidney Zion wrote for most of the New York publications you’ve heard of, and was the one who revealed the name of the guy who leaked the Pentagon Papers.

Together their monthly ran eight issues.

The first, in our rare periodicals archive, pretends ads don’t exist, favors the extended narrative, and pushes against journalistic hypocrisy. There’s a report offering Altamont as a refutation of Woodstock, an assertion of the normalcy of atrocity in Vietnam, a tale of CBS-CIA collusion in Haiti, the American- and British-made disaster of Biafra, Mark Twain’s radicality, high school activist thought, mobster biography, and a ski champ-turned-salesman profile by Hunter S. Thompson, whose gonzo paradigm, “The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved,” debuted in Scanlan’s third issue. Their last was boycotted by U.S. printers for covering domestic guerilla warfare.

“We will make no high-blown promises about how great this magazine is going to be,” Hinckle and Zion wrote on the cover. “Pay the buck and turn the page.”

We have 2 issues of Wedge, no.1(1982:summer) and no.2(1982:fall). The 10 numbers published between 1982 and 1988 represent the entire run. Some issues were published in combined form; no issues were published for fall 1983, spring 1984-fall 1984, summer 1985-1987. They have the following subject headings in our catalog, the links for which you can follow to other material in our catalog with the same assigned subject heading:

Each issue had a distinct title. You can see the title for number 1 below. Number 2 was called The Spectacle.

The First Issue of Wedge was dedicated to the poet James Laughlin.

Back Cover, n. 2 fall 1982

The content includes interviews with visual artists, writers, and filmmakers, as well as essays on various art forms. They also published poetry and various writings, such as “The Thomas Crown Affair” in which Richard Prince chronicles what he did instead of going to work (which included going to the Orleans Theater to watch porno movies and a Howard Johnson’s for a meal). Below are the table of content pages.

Table of Contents, n. 2.

Table of Contents, n. 1.

And as a last enticement, here is an insert called the License Action by the Guerrilla Art Action Group from issue no. 1. These are business card sized and all came in a tiny envelope.

It is a highly entertaining read/browse that provides a snapshot of the early 1980’s art world.